theinvinciblemark

First, none of the names you listed are slurs. Yes, there are some complaints to be made about some of those teams (that Cleveland Indians mascot, woof), but none of those names carry the same connotations as the name of the D.C. team. Secondly, I think you really overestimate how hard it is to make a petition. It took 5 minutes to type that whole thing up and less than a minute for those who want to sign it. It isn't difficult at all, and it certainly isn't a battle.

I definitely feel this. This is actually linked to my spam email for exactly that reason. And no, it almost definitely wouldn't achieve its intended result. It's just a way to remind everyone that this is a real issue and keep the conversation going.

I really hope nobody ever writes a petition with the expectation that it will actually make a difference. The point of a petition is to keep people talking. They're just to show that x number of people share an opinion.

As many of you might have heard by now, there is a not-small controversy about the name of the NFL team in Washington, D.C. For those of you that aren't familiar, the basic gist of it is that the team name is an old racist slur for Native Americans and is found by many to still be incredibly offensive. There has been some effort by the team owner, Dan Snyder, to prove that the name is inoffensive by essentially paying certain members of the Native community to say as much (Dan Snyder is a reprehensible human being for dozens of reasons, but they are mostly immaterial here). There has already been a lot of controversy over the name itself, but to this point the NFL has pretty much refused to force a name change, in large part because the team in question is one of the oldest and most popular in the league. However, the NFL's refusal to act ends where its authority does. To that end, I started a petition on Change.org telling the ESRB that if Madden '15 continues to use a racial slur it should be treated as any other game that repeatedly uses inappropriate language and rated "M." This serves two purposes: First, it shows the Native community that they are not respected less than any other community by eliminating the double standard that restricts use of slurs for other races and not Natives, and second it hurts the sale of Madden by restricting its sales at many stores, sending a clear message that the NFL will lose value to its various properties by continuing to use a slur.

If you would like to see the petition or sign it, it's located here:

Petition

Does anyone have any thoughts, questions, or concerns about this? Does the ESRB even respond to this sort of thing?

We seem to have segued into an 80s playlist.